Harry Potter The Boy Who Really Lived
by Vulpine Vixi
Summary: Don't you think that some of the characters in the books were a bit unbelievable? That Harry would have behaved differently in the circumstances? I do. Lets see if you agree. Harry with a backbone, strong but not Super Harry. HP/GW RW/HG
1. Ch 1 The Boy Who Arrived Crying

**Harry Potter- The Boy Who Truly Lived**

Disclaimer: It all belongs to her! The great J.K. Rowling. I'm just playing with her world. Don't take away my toys.

**Chapter One- The Boy Who Arrived Crying**

When Harry Potter was deposited on his aunt and uncles doorstep like the morning milk, he was only a small child. He felt a little cold around his face which he didn't like, and he was bored. He couldn't articulate his feelings well. He did what any one year old would do. He cried. As he was a quiet child, his cries were little more than a whimper. When his aunt opened the front door on that eventful morning, the crying child gave her a start and she screamed. Her screams scared the small child and he cried louder.

What could the woman do but bring the child inside, although she was loath to do so. When she brought the basket inside and placed it gently on the kitchen table, the child stopped crying with a hiccough and gave her a small smile at appreciation of warmth and a different scene than the plain white of the front door.

Petunia had another child in the room. Dudley was strapped into a high chair, making his porridge into what looked like a false beard. He had missed his mouth with his porridge covered fingers.

By comparison to Dudley, Harry was a gentle, quiet child. She had not been around Harry for long though. Maybe he was a little terror. It was after a moment she realised that the small child had a note slightly scrunched up in his left hand. She gently touched his fingers and he opened his hand up slowly, releasing the note. She took it from his small hand and opened it up to read it.

Her gentle mood abated as she read the note. It was written by a man whom she had received correspondence from before; a man who had refused to allow her to attend his school; a man who had plenty of tact in writing, but had not even met with her to tell her that her sister had died. Lily and James were dead. That is what the note said in essence. Lily had died, with her husband James. They had been murdered. Harry was alive, the sole survivor or a murderous rampage by a crazy man with a crazy false name. Her gentle mood had curdled and she was in a rage. She looked up at the peaceful child. Peaceful, calm, smiling Harry. His smile mocked her. She knew that she could never be what this child needed. The letter had given her no option but to look after him though.

She was obliged to look after Harry, to care for him 'as her own child'. 'As my own child' Petunia thought angrily 'my sister has just died and I'm told about it with a letter! A letter'. She repeated the word 'letter' in her head over and over in a state of disarray. She was starting to feel as though her life had crumbled, and the presence of this child had been the starting pistol.

After heralding the death of his parents to his aunt, Harry could not hope to ever feel completely at ease around his aunt, uncle and cousin. Whenever his aunt looked at him, her eyes met his and all she saw was Lily. Lily's eyes staring out at her from a replicate of James. For the first three years that Harry lived with Petunia, Vernon and Dudley, Petunia's eyes filled with tears each time that she looked at him. Petunia couldn't take Harry anywhere on her own without bawling. Vernon was required to take Harry anywhere that was absolutely necessary. When Harry had to go for his first eye test as a child, Vernon had drove Harry to the opticians, and had to sit in the room while Harry proved that he was pretty blind.

Vernon detested having to take Harry anywhere on his own. It made him resent Harry even more than his already did. At least the eye test and the glasses were on the NHS. Harry had wanted a thin framed rectangular frame, but Vernon didn't want to pay the £20 that it would have cost. Harry was left with the choice of the big round black ones, or a strange reddish purple coloured pair that had a smaller frame. He chose the black ones. He didn't like the way they made him look skinnier, but he couldn't wear the red-purple ones. They were extremely ugly and looked girly.

Over the years, Harry did not lose the kindness that he had bestowed upon him by his gentle and kind parents, but he did learn that he should be careful around others. His fostered family had proven this to him. His cousin Dudley had learned to treat Harry with a strange kind of fear. This resulted in Dudley needing to assert himself in the hierarchy of the house. Basically, Dudley wanted to hurt Harry in any way he could, whenever he could. Dudley was not a cruel boy by nature, but because of the attitudes to Harry within the house, Dudley learned that he could hit others whenever they concerned or bothered him. His parents had no problem with Dudley punching or throttling Harry, so why was anyone else any different?

Harry's responses to this attitude were to do as he was asked, and then when left alone he would stay far away from them all. He slept under the stairs in a small cupboard that most people used for storage. His aunt and uncle couldn't see fit to give him a room. In their minds, he was little more than a cat. They could call him when they wanted to, and then left him to his own devices when they didn't want to acknowledge his existence. Petunia and Vernon didn't refer to Harry as a cat, but occasionally, when they were alone together they called the cupboard under the stairs the 'cat hole'. His only joy came when he could be alone in a room other than the cat hole, with a book. It was too dark to read in the cupboard under the stairs. Sometimes he feared that the problems with his eyes were due to trying to read in there as a small child. His aunt alleviated these fears once when she screamed at him a comment that told him his father had glasses similar to his own.

As a ten year old, Harry was intelligent, although didn't try to excel. He tried to stay under the radar. Any success that he had, resulted in stern looks from his aunt, shouting from his uncle and beatings from his cousin. As such, Harry always sold himself short when completing assignments for school, and when completing tests.

He wanted to just be marginally better than Dudley. By just barely beating Dudley in tests, the result wasn't much more than losing his dessert to Dudley. Had Harry worked to his fullest capacity, he would have easily been within the top 10 percent of his year group at school. He was scrawny, with too much wavy black hair that stuck up in strange places. This, topped with his sellotaped glasses (Harry was permitted new glasses every two years- Vernon didn't want to go back more often than he had to for new NHS glasses, and Dudley periodically found new ways to break them), and Harry wore clothes that had belonged to Dudley who was much bigger (in height and width) than he. The only clothing that Petunia ever bought for Harry, was his underwear. This had only started after a stern letter from Harry's PE teacher in school. Overall, Harry was an odd looking boy. Not skinny enough to be on a doctor imposed diet, but skinny enough to see the bones on his legs, not well nourished, but clear and healthy skin that covered his small frame meant that no authorities ever were encouraged to get involved in Harry's wellbeing. His bruises and scrapes and cuts healed extremely quickly. His aunt and her family were careful about giving him what he needed, but he didn't get extras. Ever. Not even a proper birthday present. Usually whatever could be found in a drawer or in a pocket was what he received for a present.

Harry hoped that he would get something better than last year as it approached his eleventh birthday. 'A pen would be good' he thought one day whilst pruning the roses in the back garden, 'I start secondary school soon and I'll need my own pen'. He didn't hold much hope though.

It was with this thought that he heard a snap and a rattle. The post.

"Boy, get the post" bellowed Vernon from the kitchen table, reading a newspaper. Why the big oaf couldn't get it himself Harry didn't know. Vernon was at least 20 feet closer. Harry knew better than to complain or suggest to Vernon to get off his bum and get it himself though.

"Yes uncle Vernon" Harry said obediently, although as soon as his back was to Vernon he poked his tongue out and thought about what would happen if he did it to Vernon's face. Probably get his tongue chopped off with a kitchen knife he thought sadly.

Harry grabbed the post, and quickly sorted it in his fingers. Postcard… from ergh, Vernon's sister Marge, a bill, blah blah…. Wait, something for Harry! Without sparing a moment to look at it properly, knowing that Vernon's temper wouldn't stretch to waiting much longer than a few seconds, Harry slipped his own letter in the back of his jeans waistband and pulled his t-shirt over it. As Vernon had opened his mouth to ask what was taking so long, Harry put the sorted post on the table and went back to his duties in the garden. When he got to the bushes, he slipped the letter out and hid it under a plant pot for the time being. People were around. He would look at it closer later on. Harry continued with the pruning, hearing Vernon saying something about funny whelks. Later in the day, exhausted but excited, Harry slipped his letter under his bed in his cupboard, before cleaning up for dinner. Although no one was around, and he was dying to read his letter, if he hadn't washed, dressed and started the dinner his aunt would give him a horrible look when she got back from the neighbours, and Vernon might get the belt out and strike him with it for keeping them all hungry.

After dinner, Harry retired to bed in his cupboard and looked at the letter properly. It was definitely addressed to him. It even had his cupboard on the envelope. 'No mistake there' he thought matter-of-factly. He was not bitter about it. He just accepted it. The letter was stranger than that. It was written on heavy, yellowish parchment that was folded into an intricate envelope, and sealed with a wax seal. The crest on the seal was interesting, but he couldn't quite make it out. He silently broke the seal and opened up his letter.

After reading his letter, Harry had more questions than answers. He found some truth in it, but it was very strange. He had been invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Something about the implications resonated as truth with him for some reason, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He needed answers. He had no one to talk to. The letter asked him to 'owl' his response. He didn't know what that meant. 'Why couldn't they have left a phone number?' he thought, feeling frustrated.

Without any option, Harry brushed a spider out of his hair, and walked out of his cupboard with the letter, straight up to his aunt and uncle who were cuddled up, watching a movie on the sofa, with Dudley asleep on the single chair, curled up but hanging over the edges reminiscent of a very large, very fat hedgehog.

"Aunt Petunia" Harry started. Petunia looked at him with the usual contempt she gave him, until she noticed the letter he held in his right hand. Without blinking, she drained of all colour and sat up straight. Vernon looked confused, and then glanced at Petunia. Realisation dawning on him, he seemed to gain the colour that Petunia had lost. His face became a beetroot-like colour.

Before either of them could say anything, Harry brandished the envelope towards them, and held onto the letter for the moment.

"I had a letter sent to me today" He did this deliberately so they could see how it was addressed. Petunia gained extra colour, but it wasn't right. She went a strange green colour. She made a sound that sounded like a strangled cough.

Harry then showed them the letter. Vernon made to grab for it, but Harry did not allow it. He didn't want the letter to be torn up, although he had already memorised the letter. He wanted to keep it if he could. Harry summarised it for them, and then asked a question.

"What can you tell me?"

It was perhaps the lack of a childish question that caused Vernon to blanch. Harry seemed in his eyes to be more of a threat than ever.

Harry did not receive answers that night, but the next morning, his aunt and uncle cleared Dudley's second bedroom out of all of the things that were rubbish and moved Harry's meagre possessions in. His aunt also left a small package on his bed: a wicker Moses basket, a blue blanket, and a crumpled piece of parchment with a message on it, with a familiar name on it.

Please review. For the first time ever, I am writing this without a solid, in stone plan of where this story is going. I have a rough idea and intend to build it as I go along. Any suggestions for what you would like to see happen to this confident, more studious Harry?


	2. Ch 2 The Boy Who Learned New Magic

**Harry Potter- The Boy Who Truly Lived**

Disclaimer: It all belongs to her! The great J.K. Rowling. I'm just playing with her world. Don't take away my toys.

**Chapter ****Two- The Boy Who Learned New Magic**

Harry now had a bedroom that he could call his own. By normal standards, it was a small box room. Compared to what he was used to, Harry thought that the room was very large. The only items that remained of Dudley's were several shelves of books (never touched), a broken alarm clock that didn't look broken (hence why his aunt and uncle hadn't thrown it when they cleared the room), and some stuffed animals that Dudley clearly had no use for. As Harry was a wizard, he hoped to be able to make use of these items. For now, as he had no idea how to contact anyone from the wizarding world, all he could do was wait. Thankfully, something in the room could help keep the boredom away. The books. He would read something. He selected one of the classical collection that was bought for Dudley, that he had only wanted because they were the highest priced item in the schools book club. Dudley had never intended to read them.

Harry thereafter spent his free time reading books. In a short space of time, he worked his way through some works by Roald Dahl, H.G Wells and Charles Dickens.

Harry had barely read a quarter of the books on Dudley's shelves when Harry was able to RSVP to his letter. A courier in the form of a giant man on a not quite so giant flying motorbike came to visit at about 8:30 one night just before the end of July. He announced his arrival by crash landing into the back garden, and swearing loudly as he dug himself out of the roses.

'Great' Harry thought when he realised what had happened, 'more gardening for me to do'. His aunt and uncle didn't respond the same way. With the same nervousness that they had around Harry, except that it was quadrupled, they hid behind the sofa in the living room.

Harry did not feel the fear that his family had. He had been waiting for someone to come. Harry stepped out to the back door of the house to greet the guest. The giant man was twice the size of a normal man, whose head was covered in long, thick, black frizzy hair including a wild full beard.

"'Ello 'Arry" Hagrid started, slightly surprised at the boldness of the small boy. "Ah haven' seen ya since were a li'l babe. Could carry ya in one hand I could"

"Hello sir" Harry said clearly, offering his hand.

"Ah, 'course. Didn' introduce meself. I'm Rubeus Hagrid. You c'n call me Hagrid. E'ryone does. I'm Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. Course, you know all 'bout Hogwarts." he said as he gently shook Harry's hand.

"Not really," Harry said, "all I know is that it's a school that teaches Witchcraft and Wizardry, from my letter. It's the first I've heard of it."

Hagrid's face went blotchy with rage.

"First you've heard of it! First you've heard of it! Dursley" the final word Hagrid said in a raspy whisper. Hagrid crouched through the back door and slunk into the house crouched down, but still managed to look furious and as though he could cause a great deal of damage, especially as he wielded a folded pink umbrella with a large spike in his right hand like a sword. He seemed to know exactly where the Dursleys were however. He stormed through the kitchen, down the hallway and turned right through the door into the living room. He stood, in the living room, bent forwards so that the top of his body could remain looking straight from the Dursleys position behind the sofa.

"yer didn't tell the boy anything abou'… abou' anything! His parents, their school, the story of his very existence!" the Dursleys tried to shrink down even more behind the sofa, even though they knew that the giant knew exactly where they were.

"Hagrid," Harry said gently. "I know now, it doesn't matter." Harry wasn't really bothered about Hagrid being angry, in fact, he thought it might be fun to watch Hagrid blow up at his family, but he thought that it was perhaps wiser to cool Hagrid down now.

"O'course. You're right. Lookit ya" Hagrid smiled broadly and ruffled Harry's head so hard that Harry's knees buckled, "Spitting image o'yer dad, but yer more like yer mum. Bet yeh'll be a Gryffindor too."

"Gryffindor? What's that?" Harry asked.

Maintaining his calm composure, although he gave the sofa a dirty look (because the Dursley's were still hiding behind it) he replied, "One o'th houses. There's Gryffindor- house of the loyal, brave 'nd righteous; Ravenclaw- house of the creative, clever an' witty; Slytherin- evil house, bad wizards come from there- though officially- ambition, cunning, and resourcefulness; and Hufflepuff- hardwork, loyalty, tolerance and fairplay."

Harry asked Hagrid more questions. After a few minutes, they migrated to the sofa, behind which the Dursley's had remained until that point. When Harry and Hagrid sat down to continue their chat, the Dursley's fled one by one when they thought that Hagrid wouldn't notice. In actual fact, Hagrid noticed, but he didn't care. He was only there to see Harry.

In their chat, Hagrid fumbled through his many pockets and produced a quill, parchment and ink and wrote a note confirming that he had met with Harry, and then he found a small ruffled looking owl from an inside pocket that hooted in a shaky way as it fled through the window into the night with Hagrid's note attached to its leg. Hagrid advised Harry about many things- about Diagon Alley and how to enter, about Hogwarts and the sorting, about what to expect from school… and most importantly to Harry, he told of the night that Harry's parents were murdered by Lord Voldemort, and Harry's fame that he would undoubtedly have when he arrived in Hogwarts. They talked late into the night, and Harry expressed a wish to go to Diagon Alley the next day. Hagrid agreed to go with Harry, and even spent the night on the sofa. Vernon and Petunia didn't have a say as they refused to come downstairs to talk about it and stayed upstairs until Hagrid and Harry left the next morning.

Hagrid took Harry on the train to Charing Cross, and then they walked up Charing Cross Road until they came to a record shop. When he had been walking, Harry was sure that the book shop was next to the record shop, but now they had stopped, he noticed a small old-fashioned looking pub called The Leaky Cauldron. This seemed odd, until he noticed that no one but he and Hagrid seemed to be able to see the pub. Plenty of people noticed Hagrid though. Their eyes glanced at the huge man briefly, before they then carried on with their business.

Hagrid led Harry into the pub. It was larger inside than it had seemed from the outside. Much larger. Harry didn't have long to appreciate that, as Hagrid had been loudly conversing with the landlord and everyone stopped talking to watch them. Mostly, they were looking at Harry. Several of the people in the bar mouthed 'Harry Potter' at him. 'Yes' he thought 'I know my name'. Someone came over to shake his hand. Without a great deal of trust over people he didn't know, Harry took a step back.

"Hi" he said as he gave a small wave at the man with the stretched out hand.

Hagrid perhaps took this as a sign that Harry wanted to be left alone, so he sped them through the bar out to the back.

"Sorry Hagrid. I just don't like that sort of thing. I don't like a lot of attention"

Hagrid chuckled "well, if tha's anything to go by, you'll be getting' plen'y of it at Hogwarts.

Hagrid opened the wall to Diagon Alley by carefully choosing a brick, and then tapping it with his pink umbrella. When the magical world unfolded in front of him, Harry was speechless. Magic was everywhere. Most of the people here were wearing robes, the shops seemed to glisten with magic, and the items that they were selling were astonishing. Cauldrons, wands, potion ingredients, books with strange titles… Harry couldn't take it all in. Hagrid walked Harry far into the Alleyway, whilst grinning at Harry's shocked expression. It seemed their first destination was a large white building that towered over most of the other buildings in the Alley.

Entering the snowy white building, Harry realised that it was a bank, and the most unusual bank he had ever seen. What he gathered was a goblin was standing at the main entrance doors. Inside those, were another set of doors with another goblin standing by an inscription advising thieves to not enter that gave Harry the creeps. Inside the main floor of the bank, many goblins sat around on raised platforms counting coins, dealing with customers and completing other tasks (one goblin he saw had a huge pile of bright blue documents in his arms that he was carrying towards a large vaulted office).

They met with a goblin named Griphook who led them to Harry's vault. Harry had never seen so much money. He used a leather pouch that seemed to be enchanted. No matter how much he put in it, it didn't get heavier or bigger, but looking inside it, he could see a large mound of coins. He also noticed that there was more than just gold in the vault. There was a corner at the far back that seemed to house ancient paintings, a large briefcase that he couldn't get open and smelled of centuries old dust, and a dozen crates that seemed to be labelled 'clothing'.

Harry didn't want to dally, but he looked at Hagrid who gave him a nod as if to say 'we have time, go ahead'. Harry prised open a few of the crates, finding luxurious adult sized wizarding robes for both men and women, most of which had a small emblem on the breast with what seemed to be the Potter coat of arms. Harry found a few crates that were labelled differently. They were labelled 'James' Clothes'. Harry opened them carefully, suspecting that they belonged to his father. Whether they did or not, Harry found one of the crates had robes in that fit him. He decided to leave them behind, until Hagrid pointed out a black leather rucksack that was in the corner. The rucksack was obviously magical also, as it seemed to be filled with a library of books, despite being no heavier than a two litre bottle of water. He stowed the blue robes, and a few others that he thought were nice in the backpack also. He had no idea what books were hauled over his back, but he had all summer to find out and he figured, even if they were regular muggle books, maybe there would be something interesting in there for him to read at some point, and it was easier than getting all of the books out to take the bag.

With everything he wanted right now out of the vault, including enough money to buy more than everything he needed for the new school year slung over his back, Harry felt confident and like he was making a difference to his own life.

Before they left the bank, Hagrid went to visit vault 713 and took out a small grubby package from an otherwise empty vault and Harry changed up some of his galleons into pounds sterling. He left the bank with 600 galleons 15 sickles and four knuts and £250. After they had completed their business with the bank, Hagrid took Harry to a variety of shops. First Harry went to have his school robes fitted. Not only did he get the 3 plain black work robes and hats that were required as his uniform, he also selected several other coloured work robes, as the proprietor told him that typically work robes were worn for day to day use within the wizarding world. Although Harry lived with muggles, he wanted to be able to fit in with other people in his school when they were not in lessons.

They continued on to the bookstore Flourish and Blotts where Harry bought all of his school books that were required, as well as a few other prominent titles. He found in a small corner of the shop a few editions of 'Hogwarts: A history', which he took a copy of, a book about magical creatures which he chose because of Hagrid's interest in dragons and wanted to find out what else there was that he didn't know about, and a large glossy book titled 'Modern Magic' which drew Harry because of the appearance of simplicity of the title, and he hoped it would help him prepare for Hogwarts.

Harry was wary of buying potions ingredients, as he didn't know what would be useful other than the standard school supply. He approached a man with dark, lank hair who was hovering by a sign labelled 'powdered bison horn- extremely volatile 16s per lb'.

"Excuse me sir," Harry asked as politely as he could when the man had stopped inspecting the bison horn, "could you recommend some potion ingredients that could complement my starter potion kit?" He man gave a half sigh and advised on a small selection of ingredients. Harry showed eagerness, and thanked the man profusely for his help. After buying his ingredients, a cauldron, and other items, they went on to 'Ollivanders'- the wand shop. Harry was the most excited about this. A magic wand- a conduit for potentially amazing magic. They entered the shop, and Harry met the creepy Mr. Ollivander, who after some deliberation matched a holly and phoenix feather wand with Harry and advised about the curious brothership of the wand with that of Voldemort.

Hagrid advised Harry that he wanted to get him an early birthday present. They went to the pet shop and had a look around together. There were many fascinating animals in the shop. In the far back of the shop, Harry found himself opposite a large snake enclosure.

The snake was decidedly playful. He stretched out as far as he could and then curled up and tapped the end of his tail repeatedly on the floor of the enclosure. Harry smiled at the snake.

"It's like you're dancing"

"I am- I have that new Celestina Warbeck song in my head" the snake said to Harry.

Harry was taken aback. He turned his head to look around. No one there. It was definitely the snake that spoke to him.

"You can understand me"

"Of course I can. You're the one who's talking in my language. I'm not speaking yours"

"I'm speaking another language?" Harry asked.

"You're a sharp one." The snake said in a humoured tone, "Septia, you can understand him too can't you?"

A small snake in an enclosure above a large green toad spoke in a high pitched tone,

"Yeah- I can. Stop tapping that tune Amatis, you're driving me crazy. I can't wait to get out of here."

Harry was shocked, but was relieved when Hagrid came to the back of the shop to tell Harry that he wanted to get him an owl if he was ok with that, and they'd go to another shop because the cat hair in this shop was making his allergies flare up. After Hagrid purchased a beautiful snowy owl and gave her to Harry, Harry told Hagrid about the snakes. Hagrid nearly dropped his umbrella after this piece of news.

"Blimey Harry- yer a parselmouth! Be'ter keep that quiet in Hogwarts. People'd be thinking yer You-Know-Who incarnate."

"What do you mean? Can't lots of wizards talk to snakes?"

"No. It's rare. Very rare. J'st don' go shouting 'bout it".

Hagrid left Harry in London, so that Harry could make his own way home. As it was still early in the day, Harry stopped off at Surrey Quays shopping centre, and bought himself new clothes, including underwear, socks, jeans, t-shirts, shirts, jumpers and a new pair of trainers. He would finally be able to wear clothes that fitted him, and he would look at least semi smart. While he was there, he stopped into Specsavers, and had a fresh eye test, and ordered new glasses with a smaller frame. He liked the frameless glasses, but his lenses would be too thick to fit into the style. He would pick them up in 2 weeks, and then he would look presentable to go to Hogwarts.

While he was at the shopping centre, he also decided to get some books and guides on secondary education. Even though he was getting an education, it wouldn't be the same as his peers who were muggles, so he wanted to attempt to keep up with that too.

Harry changed his clothing in the toilets of the shopping centre. He chose a pair of pale blue jeans, a black t-shirt with a tiger motif on the front, changed his worn, too large grey socks for a pair of sports socks, and put his new trainers on. He then put all of his packages in his rucksack, and noticed that he didn't have any struggle in getting the packages in.

He then went home to face the music with the Dursleys. He half expected outrage when he got home. He did not expect what he received. Hatred.

"You ungrateful swine" Vernon shouted at Harry "The clothes we give you aren't good enough for you? We put good money into you boy… I should…"

What he should do next no one found out, because Vernon's mouth disappeared. Harry was shocked, but he managed to pull himself together to reply to his uncle.

"Frankly, no. The clothes you give me aren't good enough. They don't fit me. They don't fit Dudley anymore, but that doesn't mean they fit me! You didn't spend a penny on me. You spent it on Dudley, and instead of throwing it away or using it as rags after he split and wrecked them, you patched them up badly and gave them to me to wear. Well, it's no wonder I've never had any friends. You've left me to look scruffy when you could have used a little of your money to buy me half decent clothes. I just bought a whole wardrobe that is fine for me for less than £150."

The Dursleys looked stunned at Harry's change in attitude.

"So you can leave me to wear the clothes that **I** buy myself. And I'll make uses of all of Dudley's old clothes that you gave to me. I'm not in your way. I'm not doing anything to hurt you. I just want to live in peaceful coexistence. Now, I'm going to go upstairs and read."

Harry stormed away upstairs, and perhaps if at that moment Vernon's mouth hadn't come back, he would have got into more trouble with his family. They had seemed shocked, and they were. None of them thought much about Harry's personal rights. They saw him as a problem that sapped money from them (all he actually used was a little water, a little electricity and a small amount of food).

Harry spent the next weeks leading up to school diligently reading the books that he bought, including his school books and practicing magic with his wand when his family weren't around to hear him, peacefully completing his 'chores', and going to the park to walk around. He even made some acquaintances. Some boys who often played football in the park occasionally asked him to play if they had an odd number of players. He enjoyed playing football with the boys, but didn't get to know them much more than their names.

When Harry looked through the books in his backpack, he realised what a treasure trove he had. Not only were the majority of the books from the magical world, but a large number were ancient texts that looked expensive and fascinating. Most of it he couldn't understand yet, but a while in the magical world and he hoped to be able to.

Please review. For the first time ever, I am writing this without a solid, in stone plan of where this story is going. I have a rough idea and intend to build it as I go along. Any suggestions for what you would like to see happen to this confident, more studious Harry? No promises that I'll include your ideas, but I'm willing to consider suggestions.

A/N: sorry this took so long. I thought I had posted this chapter. Please accept my apologies. The next one won't be as long a wait. Hopefully I'll get chapter 3 up on Friday.


	3. Ch 3 The Boy Who Made New Acquaintances

**Harry Potter- The Boy Who Truly Lived**

Disclaimer: It all belongs to her! The great J.K. Rowling. I'm just playing with her world. Don't take away my toys.

**Chapter ****Three- The boy that made new acquaintances**

After having read a large portion of the books he had bought and a couple from the backpack that he had rescued from his parents vault, he had found out a fair amount about the wizarding world.

Not only was he able to cast a few simple spells, he also had read about a variety of magical beings and creatures, learning a bit about British wizarding geography including some towns that were either partly or completely populated by magical people. In the same book he found out about means of magical transportation, and he decided that he would take the knight bus to Kings Cross station on September 1st. That would mean that he wouldn't have to ask his uncle who would almost certainly say no.

Not only did he find out about these, in 'Hogwarts: A history' he also found a familiar name: James Potter, 1977, Sixth Year- Quidditch Chaser. Harry knew this was his father, and had read that Quidditch was a sport in the wizarding world. He didn't know much about Quidditch, but was determined to find out more when he arrived at school.

On the morning of August 31st, Harry packed the last of his books and prepared his snowy white owl, who he had named Hedwig, for travel. He was very eager, and was looking forward to going to Hogwarts. He laid out a nice pair of black jeans and a light green t-shirt for the next day, making sure that they were nicely pressed. He tried on his Hogwarts robes over the clothes he was currently wearing. With his new glasses, and his robe, he thought he looked very smart, with the exception of his hair. He wished there was a way to tame it, to make it not stand up all over the place. He didn't have much experience with hair products or with styling at all. The only time he had ever used anything, was when Dudley had thrown away a hair gel because it was pink and sulked until his mother bought the green one he usually had, and Harry had retrieved the gel pot from the bathroom bin, and played with it. He hadn't liked it because it was sticky and greasy and made his hair clumpy instead of smoothed out. He decided to go to the local supermarket with the money he had, to get something for his hair and perhaps some supplies. He took off his robes and pocketed his small wallet with pounds sterling inside.

He walked the 15 minute walk to the nearest Sainsbury's. He chose a small trolley outside, and then went in. He was excited at being in the supermarket, selecting items for himself for school. He whizzed through the clothing, electrical items and furnishing and positioned himself down the centre aisle. He slowly went down the aisle, looking in both directions as he went, selecting a few treats that he could take with him, and turning into the chemist section. He selected enough items to last for the year including shampoo and conditioner, shower gel, toothpaste, mouthwash, dental floss, a few toothbrushes, lynx body spray and a large multipack of tissues. Then he came to the haircare section. There was a wide selection of gels, creams, waxes, sprays, mousses and serums. He went for a hair cream because it offered versatility and didn't look like it would be sticky to his fingers. On his little shopping trip, he also bought himself a few treats for when he arrived at school including a packet of chocolate chips cookies, a packet of custard cream biscuits, and some bags of sweets. He'd never been allowed sweets before, so he didn't have a big sweet tooth, but he enjoyed being able to have treats that wouldn't be taken away from him at school. He also got himself a large bottle of water for the train the next day. When he paid and packed his carrier bags, he put his treats at the bottom of the bags, so that they couldn't be seen from looking in.

As he expected, when he got back to his aunt and uncles house, he was pounced on and screeched at for having shopping.

"You stole our money to buy…"

"Stop!" Harry shouted. "I used MY money to buy things for school. Let me past!"

Petunia deflated a little, but she still looked huffy. Harry heard he walk away, assuring herself that Harry had stolen money from her. He was sure she was going to check her handbag to see if any money had disappeared. He put his treats and his other shopping in his trunk, tucked neatly underneath some of his clothes, with the exception of his bottle of water, and a pack of malteasers that he put into his carry bag for the train. In his carry bag, he had also carefully wrapped his school robes and hat in one of the carrier bags he got earlier that day. He hoped they wouldn't get too creased.

After he had finished packing his items away, he played with a tub of hair cream, testing out different styles on his fairly long black hair. At the most inappropriate moment (he had just pulled his hair into some semblance of a Mohawk) when his aunt banged on the door, clearly with Vernon and Dudley behind her as Harry could hear them loudly talking.

Harry opened the door, and roughly smoothed his hair backwards. The cream was working quite well on his hair.

Vernon looked in the little box room at the items around- the white owl looked quizzically over briefly and then tucked her head under her wing; the trunk that stood half open, waiting for the final tub of hair cream to be placed inside, with robes and spell books there, the holly and phoenix feather wand that laid on the pillow of the bed, and the carry bag which was closed.

When the door had opened, all three of the Dursley's had quietened down to look around the room. None of them had seen it since Harry moved in there.

None of them spoke, seeing that Harry's belongings were packed away.

"When do you leave?" Dudley quietly asked after a few minutes silence.

"First thing in the morning" Harry replied dully, expecting this to be the calm before the storm "So not to worry, I'll be out of your hair soon, and I'll be gone all year." Vernon seemed to decide that even though he'd prefer Harry wasn't there at all, he could wait a few more hours. Petunia nodded, but still had an expression on her face that showed she was still angry. Seeing the clearly expensive trunk, robes, books and items, she seemed to appreciate that Harry had some money and had bought his own items after all.

Vernon also seemed to have reached this conclusion "when you come back, you'll need to pay rent- £50 a week for every week you are here."

"No- he doesn't Vernon" Petunia interjected "nothing will change. We'll keep everything as you left it, and we'd appreciate it if you can still help out a bit around the house when you come back but you don't have to pay rent".

Maybe Petunia had finally grasped the fact that Harry was a wizard in training, and that they had been horrible to him for years, or maybe she had just realised that if Harry paid his way, he wouldn't help out anymore as he had already put in his contribution to the house.

"Thank you Aunt Petunia. I'll still help. Do you need help with dinner?"

Harry and the Dursleys had a peaceful and almost friendly dinner that night. For the first time, Harry appreciated that they were his family. He knew however, that the peace was short-lived. He hoped it would just last until the morning. After dinner, as usual Harry washed up and put the dishes away. The only difference was, that his aunt stayed in the kitchen and cleaned the kitchen surfaces and floor, so that he wouldn't have to do it after the washing up. She didn't speak to him or get too close to him but after they completed the cleaning up, she glanced at him and Harry thought that perhaps that was as close as he would get to a smile- for now anyway.

At 7am the next day, Harry washed and got dressed, putting on his black jeans and green t-shirt that he has selected the day before. He styled his hair with a parting along the right side of his head, and let the hair drop over his scar. He even stuck a small section of hair to his forehead over the scar, and left the rest a little looser, to prevent the scar from showing. With his hair cream, he was able to get the hair to mostly stay down. It even looked more wavy than spiky.

By 8am, he was ready. He went downstairs to see that the Dursleys were all up. Dudley looked cross. He appeared to have snapped the end off of his smeltings stick while his mother ironed his newest pair of knickerbockers before he tried them on to see if they fit this time. He stood in the kitchen in his underwear and his straw hat with his arms folded under his chin.

Trying not to laugh, Harry poured himself some cereal, noting the empty bowls in the sink that the others had eaten from. He ate quietly, watching the drama. By 8:15, Harry had eaten, washed the cereal bowls, and brushed his teeth. He threw away the old toothbrush that he had just used for the last time, as he had new ones for school, and then proceeded to take his school belongings downstairs. He managed it in two trips. The first of which was to take Hedwig down, everything else he took in one trip.

With his luggage just inside the front door, Harry went to say goodbye to his family. The scene in the kitchen hadn't changed much. Vernon was sitting at the table, super-gluing the end of the Smeltings stick back on, Petunia was ironing the white shirt and Dudley was now wearing the knickerbockers that actually zipped up this time, his vest, and his straw boater eating a cereal bar. Harry quietly cleared his throat. All three heard him and looked up.

"I… erm… I'm off now I guess." They just stared at him.

"Ok then- bye." He vaguely waved, decided it was pointless trying to invoke a feeling of family and walked away. In his wake, the three Dursleys remained silent for a moment and then went back to their activities.

Harry took his belongings outside to the curb, and stuck out his wandhand, as the book he read had told him to do. Within seconds, a huge triple-decker, violent purple bus pulled up in front of him, missing his right hand by millimetres. An old man recited some words to him, welcoming him to the Knight bus and telling Harry his name was Arnold, before saying in a pant "Phooo… gotta retire soon" He helped Harry take his luggage aboard, and asked his destination,

"Kings Cross station please"

"Ah- Hogwarts student, eh? Not to worry- we'll get you there safe. There's a seat over there on the right."

Arnold went back to the front, and Harry had barely sat down when he shouted "Step on it Ern"

"Alright Arn" came back from the drivers seat.

The Knight bus swooped and swerved, banged and bounced, slid and suddenly stopped. Hedwig protested loudly with some screeching throughout the journey, but it hadn't taken long before the bus stopped. After fifteen stops around the UK with Arnold shouting the next location each time the bus started again, Arnold called up the bus "Next stop Kings Cross." Harry started to get his items together. Minutes later, the bus stopped outside Kings Cross. Harry wondered if the muggles could see anything, but clearly they couldn't. They didn't see the bus; they didn't see Harry appear from nowhere. They just didn't notice anything about the whole situation. Harry had read about a tricky charm called 'notice-me-not' and wondered if it had been used on the bus and its riders for a while after the left the bus. He thought that it probably had.

Harry was not the only person to get off this stop. A girl who looked about 14 and a boy that Harry thought might be a second year student also got off the bus, adorned with trunks and bags. Harry followed the two students, and saw them both walk purposefully at the brick barrier between platforms 9 and 10, and disappear into it. He followed, keeping pace with them, avoiding other passengers, and a second before he would have made contact, closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes, a huge scarlet train stood on the tracks, silent and still.

He knew he was too early as the train didn't depart until 11am, and it was around half 9, but he wasn't the only one here early so was relieved. There was a café at the far end of the platform. He wasn't hungry, but the doors on the train were locked, so he went to sit down and have a drink of juice. He hoped for orange or apple, but they had either pumpkin or turnip for 1 sickle. He went for pumpkin. He thought it might be nicer. It turned out it was very refreshing and quite sweet. While he waited for the train doors to open, he took out 'Hogwarts: A history' and read. After half hour, more students and their families arrived on the platform, and as the clock struck 10am, the carriage doors opened on the train. Harry gathered his bag, trunk and owl cage and carried them onto the train. It was still quiet yet. There were only around 30 students in total that had already arrived. Harry selected a carriage from the middle of the train. Each carriage had four private cabins inside. He took the back cabin of this carriage. There were benches on each side and overhead storage space above the chairs. He placed his trunk on the shelf, stood Hedwig's cage on the floor next to the window, and put his small bag on the chair next to him. He used the bag to lean on while he continued to read 'Hogwarts: A history'. He had read it before, but as he was going to Hogwarts Castle, he figured he should know as much as possible about it beforehand.

Minutes before the train was due to depart, a red-haired person came into the carriage, "Sorry- do you mind if I sit here… everywhere else is full?"

"Yeah- go for it" Harry said briefly, taking a glance at his companion. He was wearing slightly shabby, slightly short robes, and had dirt on his nose. His demeanour and his gentle smile showed a politeness and kindness that Harry could appreciate. He wasn't good at making friends though, so continued to read his book in silence. His companion pulled a ragged looking magazine with moving pictures of a giant red ball being chased by a mass of orange dressed people on brooms. Harry's attention was caught by the fanzine.

"Is that Quidditch?" Harry asked quizzically.

"What? Oh, yeah!" said the boy, "Chudley Cannons- they're my team. Don't you know about Quidditch?"

"Not really. I'd like to though."

"Sure- I'm Ron by the way… Ron Weasley"

"Harry Potter" Harry smiled and handed his hand out to the boy.

Ron's face paled and he left Harry there with his hand out "Are you really? Wow!" only then did he realise Harry had his hand out. "Nice to meet you" he said, shaking Harry's hand eagerly.

Ron explained Quidditch to Harry, using his Chudley Cannons fanzine to illustrate his points as he made them

"And the seeker catches the snitch, and gains the team 150 points to the total, meaning they nearly always win. But with good chasers and a good keeper, you can still win even if your seeker isn't that good. But blimey does it help to have a good seeker!

Around 1'oclock a lady came around with a cart filled with lunch items, sweets and treats. Harry remembered his malteasers in his bag, and realised that he should probably get something savoury. He asked the lady if she had sandwiches. She didn't, but she had an assortment of pastries, salads and mini-pizzas. Harry at that point heard Ron mumbling something to himself about not liking corned beef. Harry deliberately bought more than he could eat so that he could share with Ron. He bought a few pastries, a chicken pasta salad and a selection of sweets that looked interesting. He shared with Ron, who taught him about the magical sweets. Harry only opened a few of the sweets, as he wanted to save some for another time. He put some of them in his bag. Ron saw the malteasers, and asked about them. Harry gave them to Ron, who had never eaten muggle sweets before. He enjoyed sucking them until they melted and declared that there weren't enough in the little bag.

After they had eaten, whilst Ron was regaling Harry with tales of flying and playing Quidditch, a small chubby boy came quietly into the room, and asked if either of them had seen a toad. Neither had which they politely told him, and the boy went along on his way.

Another half hour passed while they talked about what to expect at Hogwarts, and a girl came into their compartment, speedily opening the sliding door and stepping into the compartment, and asked if they had seen a boy called Neville's toad.

"Sorry- we haven't seen a toad. The same toad that the boy who came in a while ago asked about?"

"Well we still haven't found it… ok. I'll go now." After she closed the door again, Harry heard her storm towards the next compartment to ask in there.

Harry thought that the storming whirlwind was impolite and far too fast.

Harry and Ron continued to chat until Harry asked if they should change into their robes around 5:30 in the evening. They pulled their robes over their muggle clothing and pulled on and straightened their hats.

Not too long after that, the train pulled up in Hogsmeade and they were all asked to get off the train taking their hand luggage. Harry and Ron left the train and walked along the platform until Harry heard a familiar voice,

"Firs' years over 'ere"

Please review. For the first time ever, I am writing this without a solid, in stone plan of where this story is going. I have a rough idea and intend to build it as I go along. Any suggestions for what you would like to see happen to this confident, more studious Harry? No promises that I'll include your ideas, but I'm willing to consider suggestions.


	4. Ch 4 the Boy Who Was Sorted

**Harry Potter- The Boy Who Truly Lived**

Disclaimer: It all belongs to her! The great J.K. Rowling. I'm just playing with her world. Don't take away my toys.

I am very sorry for the long delay. I have been inundated at work and at home. We've just been through inspection at the College (where I work full time), I'm doing well in my part-time Open university degree (woo!) and my home life is kind of settled. I really want to finish this chapter that has delayed me for so long so here I go. I promise to update again before Christmas.

**Chapter ****Four- The Boy Who Was Sorted**

"Firs' years o'er 'ere"

Harry and Ron headed towards the voice of the booming giant-man.

"Hi Hagrid" Harry said cheerfully, smiling broadly.

"Woah" Ron exclaimed, with an air of appreciation.

The whole group started to walk to a huge lake which had a large number of small boats awaiting them. Before Harry stepped into one of the boats, he saw something. He quickly darted his hands out and grabbed the huge brown toad.

"Neville…. Your name was Neville right? Is this your toad?"

Neville, the short, chubby boy ran awkwardly over to Harry, and on his way, slipped on some muddy gravel, stumbling but catching himself before he fell to the ground. After his less than graceful run, he progressed towards at Harry at a slower speed, but still faster than walking.

"Thank you- Thanks very much" He stammered and gently took the toad.

"Why don't you share our boat? I'm Ron and he's Harry" Ron gently ushered Neville onto their boat, spurred on by Harry's forthrightness and bravery.

Neville grinned and hopped into the small boat, showing more grace now that he had his toad safely in his grasp than when he stumbled. All three remained silent in the boat, but grinned conspiratorially at each other.

The boats looked as though they were carved out of giant acorn shells, and moved by magic in the wake of Hagrid's boat.

Almost everyone was in awe and was silent on their progress through the lake, except for the four boys on one boat who were messing about, flicking water at the new students in the closest boats. The water was splashing everyone, disturbing their peace, and ruining the moment that they would have shortly- seeing Hogwarts for the first time.

They boys were annoying many students- Harry included. Following on from his reading, he learned that accidental magic happened when young un-trained wizards were angry or scared and that disastrous consequences could come of it. Harry knew not to lose his temper, but it was becoming difficult.

"Hey- fat lump, maybe one of these ugly things is your toad" called a blonde boy, whose comment caused laughter from the boys sharing his boat.

Harry turned around and looked at the boy. He lay across the boat, with his feet cockily dangling over the edge, while two huge pale boys and a skinny tanned boy laughed in appreciation. Harry had known strange things to happen when he was angry, but nothing so much like what happened at that point. The boat containing the four boys flipped over, emptying the boys into the lake, and continuing to rotate until it was upright again. The four boys started choking as they got water in their mouths the moment they hit the water. The blonde boy composed himself quickly, looked thunderstruck for a moment and then started swimming in a perfect breaststroke to the bank that they were heading towards. The tanned boy was rescued by a boat with only three people in, but the two large pale boys seemed to gulp down water, not knowing how to get out or swim along, growing paler by the moment.

The two large boys who clearly couldn't swim were in the water. The boys were spluttering and drifting along but weren't sinking or swallowing water.

Thankfully, the lake didn't seem to like the boys being in it. After a few moments had passed, and Harry started to consider that he might have to jump in to help them, two tentacles of huge proportion rose out of the water, and each one grabbed a boy around the waist and raised him out of the water and high into the air. After a second or two of screeching loudly like banshees over 20 feet in the air, both boys were dumped unceremoniously back into the boat as the army of boats continued on their path.

For the remaining few hundred yards, the previously silent boats housed quietly giggling and chatting children, with the exception of one silent boat filled with two sopping wet, sulking boys who had pond weed in their hair and on their robes, and the quiet rhythmic sounds of the blonde boys progress through the lake.

Harry felt sure that he had turned the boat over, but no one seemed to notice. All the other students found it amusing and seemed to think that the boat had capsized because of the actions of the boys themselves. 'Serves them right for causing trouble and being mean' Harry thought briefly, but he felt guilty for it. Although he hadn't turned the boat over intentionally, could he have prevented it, and could the boys blame him for it?

As they came through a curtain of ivy, they could finally see the Castle. Even the distraction of the boys falling into the water wasn't enough to stop this awe inspiring moment. Everyone instantly became silent and stared at the castle in wonder, and with the exception of the soft sounds of the blonde boy still swimming to the bank, there was a reverential hush.

The last moments between approaching the Castle and standing in a room next to the entrance hall slipped by so quickly, that Harry couldn't recall a moment of it. The whole group of first years waited with varying degrees of patience- some students declaring loudly how hungry they were, others pale and nervous about what was to come. Harry did not feel nervous, as he was sure that whatever test they had to pass, he would manage it but he was anxious about whether it would be a display in front of the whole school. It sounded like the whole school was waiting for them in the Great Hall.

After some time, a very tall witch with a tartan robe and matching hat came into the small room and greeted them.

"Welcome to Hogwarts- I'm Professor McGonagall"

While Professor McGonagall was speaking about a hat that would sort them, and the four houses, Harry flattened his hair out of habit. The hair cream was working quite well on controlling his hair. Since he had changed into his robes on the train, he now wore his new glasses, and he had replaced his new trainers with black work boots, he looked quite presentable.

After McGonagall had finished speaking, she led the first years into the Great Hall. All eyes followed their progress from the back to the front of the Great Hall. The tables either side were very long, each seating students wearing different emblems on their robes. To avoid looking at the multitude of students, many of the first years looked up towards the enchanted ceiling. Harry heard the frizzy whirlwind girl whisper something about the ceiling to another pupil. Harry already knew that it was made to look like the sky outside, which was a powerful enchantment placed on the ceiling by Godric Gryffindor shortly after the construction of the Castle. Harry imagined one day being able to cast such a powerful enchantment that could last for thousands of years. He imagined it needed a lot of hard work and practice to become that great a wizard. Harry decided at that moment that he would do everything in his power to become a great wizard like Godric Gryffindor.

After reaching the front of the hall, the first years were asked to turn around to face the remainder of the school, and a dirty frayed old hat sitting on a three legged stool. Professor McGonagall called the names of each student in turn alphabetically by order of their surname. By the time she had reached Harry, Neville and Hermione had both been sorted into Gryffindor, the rude blonde boy and the two large boys who had had an unexpected bath in the lake had all been sorted into Slytherin. When Harry's name was called, the whole hall seemed to erupt with whispers that sounded like a large number of snakes. As the hat dropped over his eyes, darkness enveloped him and he was glad for it, until a raspy voice pushed its way into his head.

"A very good mind, strong ambition, and a vast amount of courage- well, the only definite is that you wouldn't do well in Hufflepuff. But where to put you?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind, except I really do not want to go into Slytherin."

"Not Slytherin? You could be great, it's all here- you would have been selected by Salazar Slytherin himself as one of his students… but then again, you also would have been chosen by Gryffindor and Ravenclaw also. Your ambition is - ah, is to be like Godric Gryffindor- well, that makes it easier. Good luck in GRYFFINDOR "

The last word was shouted to the whole room. When Harry lifted the hat off of his head, he saw and heard that everyone on the long table on the far right of the hall had stood up, and was screaming and shouting with joy. Two short identical red haired boys had gripped each others wrists, climbed on the table and were spinning each other around chanting "We've got Potter, we've got Po-tter". Harry quickly went to the screaming table, hoping to settle in and for the loudness to go away. His hopes were met as the Gryffindors quietened following a stern glance from McGonagall, although they still spoke between themselves. The remainder of the sorting was swift. Ron, the boy who he had met on the train barely had the sorting hat on his head for 10 seconds before he was also sorted into Gryffindor.

After the sorting, came the start of term feast, and what a feast it was! Harry had never seen so much food. The table groaned with heavy platters of meat, potato dishes, rice dishes and more side dishes than Harry could name. He grabbed a little of everything nearest to him and dug in until he could eat no more. After a while, the dinner plates disappeared and dessert arrived. Harry managed to fit in some apple pie and custard before being dismissed to bed for the night.

Overall, Harry's first impressions of Hogwarts were of grandeur and highly concentrated magic. He walked in a daze from the Great Hall, following the long line of students up to the Gryffindor common room. If he had been more aware, he would have noticed the spectacular displays of magic every few steps, from living portraits and suits of armour, to lighting which controlled itself, to staircases which moved of their own accord… it was all beyond him in his over-filled, sleepy state however and he did not notice much of the detail.

When he arrived in the common room, he felt exceptionally comfortable, surrounded by warm red colours, with a crackling fire in the grate, the aroma of spices permeating the air and the promise of a comfy bed upstairs. He felt at home.

Harry shared his room with four other boys- Ron Weasley who he was already fast becoming friends with, Neville Longbottom, the boy who had lost his toad earlier on and was much calmer and more steady now that the toad was safely in his top pocket, Dean Thomas who wasted no time in putting up a West Ham poster over his bed chattering cheerfully in an East London accent, and Seamus Finnigan, an Irish boy who grinned constantly and who had grown up living within the magical world like Ron, who fascinated Harry.

After organising his belongings as quickly as he could, Harry fell asleep easily and comfortably on his four poster bed. Waking the next morning, Harry felt contended and comfortable. He knew instantly where he was and he hopped brightly out of bed and got ready for the day, showering, pulling on his school robes, styling his hair, and felt not only relaxed and carefree, but also very grown-up. He had managed his own life for quite some years, but it felt very different within this new environment and he enjoyed it immensely.

It was too early to go to breakfast and he didn't want to go alone in any case, so after making his bed, he opened his rucksack from his parents vault, and pulled out several books at random. Of the books he pulled out, he could only understand the title of one, so those others went back in the bag. He lie on his bed reading 'Keeping to the Statute- Why we don't want another St. Germain' to himself.

After an hour of reading, just reaching the part of the book which went into detail about the laws on secrecy across the globe, Dean awoke with a grunt. By the time Dean had showered, Neville and Seamus had also woken and went to get ready. Harry spoke to Dean while they waited for the other boys to get ready. When Dean laughed loudly at Harry's explanation of meeting the whirlwind girl on the train, Ron woke abruptly and hopped out of bed in one motion. Harry and Dean witnessing it both burst into laughter at Ron's actions. Looking disgruntled Ron went to shower.

When Ron returned from the shower, his brief annoyance was gone, and he was cheerful and friendly with everyone. All five boys went to breakfast in the Great Hall together.

Breakfast was a frantic but luxurious affair. Harry had a choice of a variety of wonderful breakfast options, and settled for making a bacon sandwich from some toast and grilled bacon, so that he had time to properly absorb everything going on.

Students were loudly chatting away about their summer break, teachers briskly handed out timetables to students as they found them, owls darted overhead, dropping off mail to students bursting with items they had forgotten to pack, presents, care packages and letters of advice from relatives and friends.

Harry and his entourage chatted quietly while taking in the atmosphere, the magic and revelling in the novelty of the new situation.

When Harry had finished his sandwich, and Ron had helped himself to a second plate of sausage, eggs and mushrooms, Professor McGonagall arrived with the timetables for the first years.

Ron didn't seem interested in his own timetable, until he noticed that Harry was carefully studying his timetable, and had pulled out an old book with a sketchy map of where each of the main teaching rooms in Hogwarts castle were. Together, they looked over where the rooms were meant to be, and convinced the other Gryffindor first year boys to leave for their first class early, so that they had plenty of time to find the right room.

Please review. For the first time ever, I am writing this without a solid, in stone plan of where this story is going. I have a rough idea and intend to build it as I go along. Any suggestions for what you would like to see happen to this confident, more studious Harry? No promises that I'll include your ideas, but I'm willing to consider suggestions.


	5. Ch5 The Boy who Made Enemies

**Harry Potter- The Boy Who Truly Lived**

Disclaimer: It all belongs to her! The great J.K. Rowling. I'm just playing with her world. Don't take away my toys.

I'm going to try to make the characters a bit more dynamic, pulling away from JKR's format and going into the minds of the characters a little. I'll play with the format and make it more my own. Therefore, from this point on I will slowly start to make it more my own style, write my way, and not try to mimic the style of JKR to make this HP story comfortable for everyone. Thoughts are in _italics_.

So here's to the new era! And to the plan of action. I can't keep writing without a plan so I sat down and wrote a firm plan which will keep me on schedule and keep the updates regular.

Last time:

_Ron didn't seem interested in his own timetable, until he noticed that Harry was carefully studying his timetable, and had pulled out an old book with a sketchy map of where each of the main teaching rooms in Hogwarts castle were. _

_Together, they looked over where the rooms were meant to be, and convinced the other Gryffindor first year boys to leave for their first class early, so that they had plenty of time to __find the right room._

**Chapter ****Five- The Boy Who Made Enemies**

The first Potions class had been very interesting. Harry and his dorm-mates, as per their custom were outside the classroom early, and quietly chatting about what sort of potions they were going to learn and which potions they were most interested to make, when a slightly familiar face gusted down the corridor toward them. The door opened without even a flurry of the wand, and the swift figure flung itself through the opening. With the door open, the boys tentatively poked their heads around the door.

"Come in" a snarly voice called, barely audibly.

Harry led the way sidling into the room as quickly as he could and promptly sat at the front of the classroom, at the very edge of the rows of desks. The professor glared for a moment at Harry, sitting next to Dean. In each class they had that morning already, they had randomly mixed up who they sat next to, so that it was a different person on their own in each class as there was an odd number of boys in the small group. In this class Neville and Seamus had partnered up and Ron was alone. Harry politely smiled at him and said "Good morning Professor Snape. Thank you again for helping me chose some extra potions ingredients in Diagon Alley." Snape frowned for a moment, nodded ever so slightly and walked to the other end of the classroom appearing to mumble to himself. Once other students had turned up, the classroom became a bit noisier but just barely. At the instant the magical clock in the back of the room reached 9am, Professor Snape was at the door, closing it.

He was softly spoken, with an air of menace. He didn't appear to like anyone very much. The Gryffindor first years seemed to take the brunt of the surly mood of Professor Snape's attitude. He was a formidable man. Taking the register, his voice was so quiet that everyone stayed silent and barely moved except to say "here sir".

Reaching Harry name he lifted his head slightly and raised his voice minutely, "Mr. Potter. Our new celebrity" he elaborated in a level voice. No one commented or laughed, but some Slytherin's smiled as though they expected something more. After the register had been taken, they got their wish.

"Mr Potter," Snape started abruptly "what do you get if you add an infusion of wormwood to powdered root of asphodel?"

"Draught of living death, sir." Harry answered confidently.

Snape paused, staring at Harry for a moment then continued "Miss Granger, where would you look if I asked you to find a bezoar?"

"Um… The stomach of a goat sir" the bushy haired girl answered quickly.

"Indeed… Mr. Finnegan, tell me the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane."

Seamus looked startled at being asked such a question. "Er…. Um… I don't know sir"

Snape, having already had two correct answers given to him was victorious in finding someone who didn't know an answer. "No, you didn't think you'd crack a book before coming to school then? Two points from Gryffindor for your lack of preparation".

No one thought this was fair, but no one was silly enough to argue back. The lesson was torturous for the Gryffindors and a slight easy ride for the Slytherin's, although they didn't get off light when it came to the practical work, but they weren't tossed anywhere near as many questions as the Gryffindors. No points other than Seamus' two were lost in the first lesson though thankfully.

After Potions, Harry was stopped before he could step onto the stairwell to go up to the ground floor of the castle.

"So, you're Harry Potter" Harry recognised the boy speaking as the blonde boy who had fallen into the Great Lake and swum to the bank.

"I am" Harry answered, feeling wrong footed by the boy who was standing slightly too close, with his arm and leg blocking the way onto the stairs. "Who are you?"

The blonde boy crinkled his face briefly before smoothing it out and smiling. "I'm Draco Malfoy of course. I'm sure you've heard of my family."

"No, sorry. I haven't." Harry told Draco truthfully and politely as he could. "Can I help you?"

Draco looked wrong footed now. "I wanted to offer you the chance to acquaint yourself with me. I can help you meet the right sort of people for your family name, and help you change house. It's been done before, but the quicker you ask to be changed, the easier it is."

"I'm fine thanks." Harry answered back, getting impatient and not wanting this kind of conversation. He didn't care who someone was by name, title or by blood. Why should anyone else? Harry got fed up with having the conversation, so gently but firmly placed his hand on Draco's elbow. Draco flinched away from the unwelcome touch and Harry passed him on the stairs. The Gryffindor boys had all waited for him, each on a step on the spiral staircase, just beyond view from the bottom of the stairs. Ron was the one on the bottom-most step.

"What a creep!" Ron told Harry as he approached.

"I think he is lonely" Harry told Ron, not wanting to bad mouth someone he didn't know.

"Yeah, but it's still creepy". Ron told Harry. Harry privately agreed with him.

At lunchtime on the first day, Harry overheard a student mention 'the kitchens'.

'_How am I so dense? Someone is cooking for us. Of course they are!__ The food isn't just magically appearing!'_

Harry asked the person next to him, who happened to be Seamus,

"Do you know where the kitchens are?"

"Ye'h sure, t'ey are right below us. Ah' don' know how you get in t'ough"

The Weasley twins overheard Harry. They grinned at each other as they walked by, each grabbing a pear off of the lunch cart and tossing it at Harry. He deftly caught them both simultaneously, barely taking a glance toward the flying fruity missiles.

'_That took the smiles off of their faces'_ Harry thought, slightly annoyed but proud nonetheless. What were they playing at throwing pears at him? He placed the pears on the table, and turned back to ham and cucumber sandwich and glass of pumpkin juice. He was really growing to like pumpkin juice. It was very enjoyable. He still hadn't braved the turnip juice which was the second most popular vegetable juice in the wizarding world.

"Harry, that was an amazing catch" one of the twins chirped excitedly.

"Stonking"

"We were wondering…"

"Could you do something like that in front of McGonagall

"Soon!"

"Because you might be an excellent Quidditch seeker!"

"And she's the only one who could get a first year into the team"

"You wouldn't be allowed to even try-out without her permission".

"If you can catch like that on a wooden chair…"

"Even if you are bad on a broom…"

"You'll still be a darn good seeker!"

Both twins briefly grinned at him and then sped away out of the Great Hall chattering and tweeting at each other jovially.

'_Hyper blokes'_ Harry thought idly. _'Wonder how to get into the kitchens. Who does all this cooking and food preparation for us? It must be really difficult cooking so much… and what about the spells they use to make the food magically appear up here at the feast. And the way the food cart refills itself at breakfast and lunch…it must be whoever is down there. They would be some useful spells to learn'._

Something about his expression must have betrayed his excitement because Neville sidled closer to Harry and said "I'll come with you to the kitchens if you want to try to get in". They agreed to try to get in after the lessons had finished for the day.

Harry was trying ever so hard to encourage his dorm mates to be conscientious and punctual because he knew that without him they would be lazy. He hoped that soon they would do it on their own and not require him to lead. It was already getting slightly tedious for Harry and it was still only the first day at school.

At the end of the school day, Harry and Neville left Herbology together.

"I found that really interesting" Neville explained, going into detail about what he already knew about some of the plants that the around the greenhouses. Harry could tell already that Neville had an affinity for plants.

They walked together into the Entrance Hall, and then were unsure about where exactly to go.

"We need to get into the basement, and underneath the Great Hall. There isn't anything in the entrance to the dungeons that goes anywhere near there… let's try the opposite side." Harry pointed towards a door to the right of the entrance hall. They headed in and found a curved grand staircase going downwards and curved to the left. Harry grinned at Neville as they proceeded down. At the bottom of the stairs, there was a corridor going straight ahead, one going left and one going right.

'_In theory, to get underneath the Great Hall we'd need to take the left turning, then about a hundred and fifty yards up there should be a right turn which is the entrance… but this p__lace isn't that straight forward… there might be something hidden, or moving, or appear to be straight when it actually curves.'_

Harry decided to go with his gut instinct to see if his theory was correct. Luckily, it was pretty much spot on. Unluckily, in the entranceway to where there was a split off corridor, a bedraggled old-looking man was examining a portrait that appeared to have a hole in it. He held a clipboard and was writing down, muttering under his breath as he catalogued the problem.

"…right across the chimney breast in the picture plane. Needs repairing a.s.a.p." At the end of writing his sentence, he looked up to see the two boys staring at him.

"What do you want? Why are you here? Get down in your common room!" He pointed the opposite way to the stairs going upwards.

"We are sorry sir," Harry started politely, taking a step forward, "we just wanted to find out how everything is kept in such top shape around here… all the cleaning… " Harry let his sentence trail off, sensing the man was in charge of the upkeep of the building. He looked politely mollified.

"All the cooking… we heard the kitchens were down here" Neville finished for Harry. The mollified look on the man's face was gone to be replaced with a slightly angry expression.

"I'm in charge of keeping everything in its place and proper. Me and my staff make sure all of that is done."

"Your staff sir?" Harry enquired, "We've not seen anyone around except for you"

"No. And you're not likely to either. House Elves aren't supposed to be seen."

"There are house elves here?" Neville asked incredulous.

"Yes. About a hundred. They're in the kitchen during the day. They come out at night to clean and make the repairs that I ca… won't do myself. I deal with everything that comes up during the day."

"Everything looks brilliant sir. Sorry sir, but what is your name?"

"Filch." Mr. Filch muttered, then seemed to pull himself together. "I need to go now, the lunch room will be nearly clear now and I can get in to mop the floor before anything dries to it."

Harry had an idea, "Mr. Filch, what about an impenetrable charm on the floor… I read about them." Harry noticed Mr. Filch's face fall. "I could find out how to do it properly, and then cast it onto the floor for you, so it wouldn't need cleaning quite so much. It would be a very useful spell for me to know, sir".

"Yes, ok. Whatever" Mr. Filch said as he walked off.

Harry had been sure everyone here was a good wizard. Seeing the expression on Mr. Filch's face, he realised he should not be so presumptuous. He should be careful talking about using magic. _'Maybe he can't do magic? Wonder why he's here if he can't do it. Maybe he just likes it here.'_

Harry and Neville walked down the corridor that Mr. Filch had indicated where the kitchens were. As they walked down it, Neville noticed something,

"There aren't any doors down here."

Harry had noticed too. He knew there must be a secret way in… something special like the special brick to get into Diagon Alley, or the pillar in Kings Cross for platform 9 and three quarters… or the painting of the fat lady which guarded the entrance to Gryffindor house.

After a few minutes, Harry found himself staring at a painting of a bowl of fruit.

'_Strange, most paintings here are portraits'._

He was drawn to one piece of fruit and he couldn't think why. The pear.

After a few moments, he remembered the Weasley twins throwing the pears at him in the Hall and thought that must be it. That was why the pear was sticking with him. They had thrown pears at him. After he mentioned the kitchens!

'_Why not try?'_ he thought. _'Maybe they were trying to help'. _He got out his wand and tapped the pear. Nothing. He put his finger tip to the pear. Nothing. He pretended to catch the pear against the canvas, closing his fingers in on it gently. It giggled and the painting swung aside to admit them entryway.

Harry and Neville, slightly stunned, entered the kitchen. They were greeted by the sight of nearly a hundred creatures about half the height of the boys themselves, all with varying shades of brown skin from golden to the colour of tree bark, from large noses and ears to tiny ones, all wearing white hand towels tied as togas, printed with the Hogwarts crest that hung at the front. They were bustling about, some washing dishes that had been used, some sweeping the floor clear of potato peelings and chicken feathers, others cleaning the plates before they placed them on the four pristine huge tables which were presumably placed directly underneath their corresponding tables above in the Great Hall. The kitchens already smelled delicious, filled with the smell of roasting meat.

One small creature came up to the two boys.

"Hello sirs. Can we helpses you?"

Harry had already had his answer of who did all the work here. When he saw the workforce who stayed hidden throughout the day, he was amazed that no one noticed the small creatures.

"We just came to see and thank whoever did such a fantastic job of the cooking."

All the house elves who overheard Harry beamed with pride at a job well done.

"Well, thank you sir. Would yous like some cakes or some sweetses?"

Harry and Neville enjoyed speaking to the strange little creatures, and stuck around for a while, sampling some of the food. Neither boy thought they would eat much at dinner that night, but they were sure going to try. Harry was looking forward to a big slice of cherry pie and custard for after his dinner. Thirty cherry pies were baking away by the time the boys left, and Harry really wanted some.

After a delicious dinner, filled with ample chat and happiness amongst all five of the Gryffindor first year boys, they retired back to the Gryffindor common room where Ron picked up a discarded Evening Prophet and started reading. Harry was sitting between Ron and Seamus on the smallest sofa in the common room, with Neville and Dean sitting on the coffee table in front of them. Conversation ebbed into a peaceful quiet, when Harry glanced over to the newspaper and noticed an article. It told of a vault at Gringotts which had been broken into, but the vault had been emptied earlier that day. The 31st July, Harry's birthday. His mind immediately jumped to the vault that he and Hagrid had visited.

'_Would you call taking a little package out of an otherwise empty vault emptying it? Yeah. Yeah I would.__ Coincidence? Maybe. What was that thing?'_

From that point, Harry was slightly obsessed with finding out what was in the vault, and what had happened to it.

'_It's probably here. It must be valuable… or dangerous… or both! __But whatever it was it needed protecting, so it's been moved. What was it Hagrid said… something about Gringotts being the safest place, except for Hogwarts. It must be here somewhere. Somewhere hidden and protected.' _But Harry had no idea where in the Hogwarts ground the small grubby package might have been moved to.

Although he was constantly wondering about the small package, he also had made a promise to Filch. The next day, Harry drew out a large book from the library called 'Household charms and spells', which contained all of the best known spells for around the house. He was mostly interested in the first chapter 'cleaning and household maintenance', but it was actually very interesting, so he planned to read the whole thing, paying particular attention to chapter six- 'mishaps and magical aid' which was devoted to learning how to repair simple and some more complicated injuries that befell people in household situations and beyond. When he was done, he might even give the book on to Neville as chapter 3 focussed on the gardening of indoor and garden plants, plus the magical aid section might be of benefit for the stumbling boy who had already stubbed his toe in Herbology, bruised his cheek in charms and managed to split his lip in the shower that morning.

Harry's first week went by in a blur. All of his extra reading and practicing over the holidays had only minimally helped him prepare for how difficult and fast paced learning how to properly control magic actually was. Harry's determination and focus drove Neville and Ron to work harder than they may have otherwise. Ron was surprisingly good at charms when he focussed hard enough although his handed-down wand hampered half of his spells. Neville was overly shy and it reflected in the way his spells came out. Dean was confident, and had average strength of magic and an average capacity for learning spells. Seamus was far too hyperactive to successfully manage most spells, often causing explosions and fire instead of the actual spells. Harry excelled in most areas through sheer determination and persistence.

The boys quickly realised that History of Magic was a waste of time the way Professor Binns taught it. After the second lesson, Harry had suggested that they meet in the common room on Tuesday nights to go through the material for the week and make sense of it. Little did he know that the idea would catch on with some of the first year girls in Gryffindor too, who joined them in their study-group.

Please review. What would you like to happen? I have a plan now so might not be able to squeeze your ideas in, but feedback is greatly appreciated.


	6. Ch 6 The Boy Who Beseeched the Headmaste

**Harry Potter- The Boy Who Truly Lived**

Disclaimer: It all belongs to her! The great J.K. Rowling. I'm just playing with her world. Don't take away my toys.

Last time:

_Harry's first week went by in a blur. All of his extra reading and practicing over the holidays had only minimally helped him prepare for how difficult and fast paced learning how to properly control magic actually was. Harry's determination and focus drove Neville and Ron to work harder than they may have otherwise. Ron was surprisingly good at charms when he focussed hard enough although his handed-down wand hampered half of his spells. Neville was overly shy and it reflected in the way his spells came out. Dean was confident, and had average strength of magic and an average capacity for learning spells. Seamus was far too hyperactive to successfully manage most spells, often causing explosions and fire instead of the actual spells. Harry excelled in most areas through sheer determination and persistence._

_The boys quickly realised that History of Magic was a waste of time the way Professor Binns taught it. After the second lesson, Harry had suggested that they meet in the common room on Tuesday nights to go through the material for the week and make sense of it. Little did he know that the idea would catch on with some of the first year girls in Gryffindor too, who would join them in their study-group._

**Chapter ****Six- The Boy who Beseeched the Headmaster**

"Apparently our parents used to take us out together when we were little. My grandmother said so. Do you remember anything about that?"

Harry didn't, but it wasn't surprising because it had been before he was a year old. Over the past few days Harry had realised just how much he and Neville had in common and was spending most of his time with him as a result.

The weekend had arrived quickly, and despite the excessive piles of homework they had already received, working on it each night and using the morning of Saturday, all five boys had managed to complete their homework and had the rest of the weekend to themselves.

Neville and Harry were sitting on a small bench in the grounds, watching Dean teach Seamus and Ron how to kick a football (soccer ball).

"What happened to your parents?" Harry wondered quietly. "You mostly talk about your grandmother."

"My parents…" Neville hesitated for a long moment.

Harry turned to Neville, and noticed a tiny tear forming in his eye which Neville tried to force back.

"You don't have to talk about it. It's alright." Harry said hastily, not wanting to upset his friend.

"No- I'm ok." Neville said looking Harry in the eye, then took a deep breath. "They were attacked by death eaters. One of them… Bellatrix Lestrange… she… she used the cruciatus curse… torturing curse… they are in a residential ward in St. Mungo's. They were driven mad. They don't even remember me." Neville bit back a sob.

Harry was deeply shocked by this.

"Oh my… Neville, I'm sorry." Harry then added in an undertone, more to himself than Neville "What on earth could they have done to deserve that?"

Neville answered him anyway, "They fought You Know Who a few times. He met… you… the week before. The Death Eaters, his followers decided to attack my family because they had stood up to him before."

Harry sat in stunned silence for a long moment.

"My parents were very brave. Much braver than me. But Grandmother wants me to be as brave as dad. That's why she said I have to have his wand." Neville pulled his wand out of his inside pocket of his robe. "She said it will inspire me. That's why did didn't buy me a new one for school. The Longbottom family is the eighth wealthiest family in England." He continued both proudly and hurriedly. "According to 'Witch Weekly' anyway, so she could afford a new one for me. Isn't the Potter family something like the fifth most wealthy wizarding family in the whole UK?"

"No idea." Harry replied, marvelling in how swiftly Neville had changed the subject to something he was obviously more comfortable talking about. "I have a vault in Gringotts which my parents left me."

Neville looked both confused and cross at the same time. This was a strange mixture on Neville who had scrunched his face so violently that hi suddenly resembled a pug dog. Harry almost laughed, but held it back and instead asked "What?"

"Your parents had much more than one little vault in Gringotts. They had at least two properties, their personal vault, their business vault… your vault was probably set up at birth and probably only took the interest of what they earned in their personal vault. Your dad was the only mature Potter left. I wonder why no one's talked to you about your assets." Neville carried on pondering and wondering, using words and naming concepts that Harry barely understood, like assets, endowment, estate, capital, bequeathment and proprietor.

Harry hadn't even thought about it before, but now he wondered what his parents had owned. What **he** now owned.

'_There must be more… didn't Hagrid tell me about their house that they went into hiding in… and he kind of suggested that they had somewhere else that they had moved from. What if there is more information about who they were, and what they were like?'_

Harry had little interest in the money or property itself. Having never had anything, to now have a vault full of gold was exciting and fantastic, as he could buy whatever he needed, and even treat himself to luxuries, but he had no concept of what he could do with mountains of gold, so did not wish for more. His only interest was to find out more about the family that he had missed out on having.

Harry had spent many hours with the backpack he found in his vault. It was very useful. He could shove whatever he wanted in it, provided it fit within the opening of the back pack, and it never seemed to get full. He had still not taken out the majority of books that were carried around in it, nor looked to see if there was anything else in the bag. However, he had added some of his own books to it, including his secondary school syllabus books for year 7 secondary learning that he had occasionally pored over. He had also wondered more about the backpack, and wondered what else there may have been in the vault. He had limited himself to so little time when he was there before… he had looked at a few crates of robes, grabbed the bag of books, and scooped handfuls of gold into his money pocket which the goblins had given him and left to purchase his school equipment. He wished he could go back to have a real look around.

After lunch, and after Ron and Seamus finally got to grips with how to kick the ball, the boys played a game of three against two, with Harry and Neville against the other three. Despite their greater numbers, Ron, Seamus and Dean lost the game. Seamus kept on kicking the ball far too wide, forgetting that the book bags were meant to be marking the posts of the goal.

After dinner that night, Harry sat reading his library book on an armchair in the common room while Dean and Seamus sat watching Neville and Ron playing gobstones. Their game was entertaining, as Neville and Ron were both as bad as each other, and they kept on getting squirted by the foul-smelling fluid which came out of the marble-like stones.

After a while, laughing hysterically, Dean got squirted in the mouth. Understandably he started shrieking with his mouth open.

"Igghhh iii miiii muuuhhh! Igghhhhhh iii miiii muuuhhhhhhhh!"

Harry found this funnier than he had found the whole game. He checked page 10 of the book again, and then put it down.

Harry pointed his wand at Dean's mouth, "Evanesco" he called clearly. The horrible smelling fluid disappeared from Dean's mouth.

His shrieking abruptly stopped, but his mouth remained wide open and even dropped a little more. Dean stared literally open-mouthed at Harry.

"Wow mate- that was awesome! Can you do my robes?" Ron grinned at Harry half-jokingly.

Harry laughed and cleaned the robes with a swish of his wand and a call of "tergeo", which removed all of the grime from Ron's robes.

His dorm-mates were amazed that Harry had been able to produce effective results when he'd only been studying magic for a week.

"How on earth did you learn that so fast?" a slightly bossy female voice called over.

"The book made it really easy" Harry answered the voice. It's very clear and precise about what to do. Not like our school books which go into too much depth about the theory behind it." Nonetheless, when the other first years tried to produce similar results, they couldn't get the spells to work.

"Maybe I just learn in a different way to you?" Harry said after watching Ron fail to remove the ash from the hearthrug for the twelfth time. Ron had to agree with him.

The Gryffindors had obviously been gossiping about him. At breakfast the next morning, Professor McGonagall asked Harry to come to her office that evening at 7 o'clock.

When 7 o'clock came, Harry was knocking on McGonagall's door. She answered the door in person.

"Mr Potter, thank you for coming. How are you settling in?"

"Fine thanks" he answered quickly. He was busily trying to organise his thoughts of everything he wanted to bring up with Professor McGonagall.

"Right, well I called you here because I've been hearing some strange things. Last night, did you complete the Evanesco spell on one classmate's mouth, and then the Terego charm on another's robes?"

"Yes professor" Harry answered politely.

"and this morning, after I had already arranged to meet with you, did you enchant a dressing gown to follow Mr Thomas into the bathroom?"

"Yes professor" Harry gave a slight smile. After breakfast he had gone back to his dormitory, and Dean had finally got out of bed to go to the shower, taking no clothes with him again. Harry hadn't wanted to see that again.

"and then at lunch time when pudding was served, did you use the defodio charm to carve the words 'ha ha ha' into Mr Longbottom's apple pie?"

Harry couldn't stifle his laughter this time "Yes professor" he laughed.

Professor McGonagall smiled a tiny smile in return. "This is highly unusual Mr Potter. Even being able to remember these spells a week into your studies is remarkable. Being able to complete the spells and charms requires a great deal of power and deliberation, which all studies show that before the age of thirteen, most wizards can't even hold a store of twenty spells. You have remarkable focus and determination."

"Funny you say that Professor," Harry said, getting brave in spite of whatever reason the professor had to bring all of this up, "I want to go to visit Gringotts, to find out about my parents estate, and I want to go soon." Harry hoped that 'estate' was the right word for everything his parents owned or had affiliations with.

McGonagall was thrown by Harry's demand. "What do you mean Mr. Potter?" she asked curiously and with some trepidation.

"I was talking to Neville, who said that the Potter family was something like the fifth richest in the UK. I want to find out what happened to everything they owned, because I haven't seen it, and I don't want someone else ending up my parents stuff, just because I didn't look into what happened." He was rambling slightly, but McGonagall's anxiety calmed when she realised that his concern was genuine.

"Of course. I will arrange for you to have a weekend's leave of absence from school, so that you can go to find out all about it, and organise everything you need to, to protect the belongings and rights of your family. Of course you want to reclaim the Potter fortune. Professor Dumbledore may know something about the assets. He was curator to your parents' estate for a time. I will make sure you get to speak to him within the next few days to find out what he knows."

"Thank you professor."

"Now, Potter, back to why we are here." Harry waited quietly for her to finish, now that he had achieved his goal. "I want you to be on an advanced programme. You will stay in your current classes, but you will get slightly more challenging work than your classmates receive, and using slightly different methods as you find book study easier than classroom lecture. Do you wish to do this?" Harry agreed to do it and signed an agreement form.

"Also, I was approached the other day by Mr George and Mr Fred Weasley, asking for you to be trialled for seeker position in the Gryffindor Quidditch team."

Harry nodded once. He didn't even know if he wanted to play Quidditch.

"I have considered it, but I think you have enough to be getting on with this year. If you wish to apply for the seeker position, you will be able to do so next year." Harry nodded dutifully. He didn't mind. He'd never even been on a broom.

Monday passed without too much incident. Harry bewitched Dean's dressing gown to follow him into the bathroom again. Ron attempted to banish Seamus's socks from the day before into the laundry basket but drenched them in water instead so he had to wring out the dirty, sopping wet socks before they could go in the laundry basket. Neville dropped his bag between Transfigurations and Charms and got separated from the other boys. He ended up walking into the wrong class, surprising a sixth year trying to switch the ears of a rabbit with ears of corn, and ending up with corn in his hair. He was late to charms and lost two house points.

Tuesday followed a similar thread, but at lunchtime Harry received a note giving direction to Professor Dumbledore's office and instructing Harry to be there at 8pm.

Upon entering Dumbledore's office, Harry became stunned into silence. The room was beautiful. It was ornately decorated with heavy oak, and almost every surface glistened with strange whirring, shiny objects. Professor Dumbledore waited behind his desk that had a huge scarlet bird perched on the corner. Dumbledore noticed Harry staring at the large bird, who watched Harry with the same scrutiny that Dumbledore did.

"This is Fawkes. He is a phoenix."

"He's amazing sir" Harry said once the bird stopped staring at him.

"Please take a seat Harry."

Harry sat at one of the padded wooden chairs which sat across from Dumbledore.

"Lemon drop?" Dumbledore offered, extending his hand towards the bowl sitting on the desk. Harry politely refused.

"So, Professor McGonagall tells me you want to know more about your family's estate. Is that right?"

"Not quite sir, I want to know _everything_ about my family's estate. Who's controlling it, what happened to it after they died, what has gone, what is still around, and then to get it all properly back in my family's name. I want to understand everything about it, and about what it means to be the Head of the family of Potter" Harry had thought for a long time about exactly what he wanted to find out and had talked to Neville about it, who helped fill him in on some of the ancient concepts that were still used.

"Professor McGonagall is helping me organise everything so that I can sort out my estate, but she said that you might know something more… that you were the curator of the estate for a while?"

"That is true. I made sure that their flat in Diagon Alley was protected so that it was never found by anyone else. I helped them to hide their new house in Godric's Hollow, and then reinforced those spells when the danger arose. I organised their funeral. I ensured that their money was invested in lucrative projects. Records for it all, I am sure are in Gringotts. I can arrange for you to meet with the managers there. But not yet. Later in the year."

After a pause Harry changed the direction of conversation to one which he thought might convince Dumbledore. "But not only that, I also want to know about my parents. What they were like, what their dreams were… who they were. Would they have been good to me, or would they have been like my aunt and uncle"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to ever go back to the Dursley's. They make everything so difficult for me. They bully me, and it's going to be much worse if I go back there, because they'll be more afraid of me. The more afraid they are, the more they punish me. They won't feed me... chances are I'll be locked in the cupboard under the stairs. If I have to go back I will, but I… don't want to be hurt anymore." The emotion and the tear that dropped from Harry's eye were clear signs of how he felt about going back to the Dursley's.

Dumbledore looked so upset at Harry's words. "But they're your family. I'm sure you are making it sound worse than it really is?" the question in his voice was clear, even through the sadness.

"No sir. Truly I'm not." Harry was too morose to say any more at that moment. The pause was lengthy. "I want to find out if there is somewhere safe I can go back to during the holidays. At the very least, as soon as I am 'of age' I want to have my own place, and if I already have that, I want to know.

"But Harry, it's just not that simple. You can't just live on your own. It's not safe."

"Why? Please tell me why, otherwise I'll assume there is no good reason, and I might do it anyway. If you tell me a good reason, I will definitely heed it and won't make trouble."

Dumbledore hesitated for a few long moments "The Dursley's are your only living blood family. There is a special spell which protects you while you can call their house 'home'. It's protected you, and them, since the night your parents were killed."

"But Hogwarts is my home. I've only been here for a short time, but this much more my home than my aunt and uncle's house ever has been. It's right that I am here! In the magical world. Being caged in a room with no contact from anyone, not being able to do my homework, not being able to live isn't right! Why would you condemn me to that?" Harry was being a little over the top in his reaction, but he wanted Dumbledore to understand his point.

This time it was Dumbledore who took a long moment to gather his thoughts and his emotions. "Ok Harry, I will agree to this excursion. But you must be accompanied. You are in Hogwarts care, your parents paid for all seven years of your study here, and you cannot be left to roam the known world on your own. I will ask Hagrid to take you. You can go the weekend after Hallowe'en. I'll even pay for a room for you both."

At that, Dumbledore grabbed a pot from his desk, removing the lid and dipping a hand in to grab a small pinch of strange powder. He threw it into the fire, before shoving his head through into the flames. Harry heard little from whomever Dumbledore was talking to, but he heard Dumbledore's words.

By the time Harry left Professor Dumbledore's office, two rooms had been booked at the Leaky Cauldron for the Saturday and Sunday nights following Hallowe'en. Feeling pleased with himself Harry went to be feeling happy with himself, and he fell into bed as was asleep instantly. He slept soundly in dreamless sleep.

HarryPotterNut94- His hair isn't neat. It is just slightly slicker than it was. It is still all over the place, but doesn't look as scruffy. It just looks a little more deliberate.

Teufel1987- thank you for your review. I originally had this chapter in a different order, but I repositioned the paragraphs to make it flow better. The phrase "as per their custom" was more than fine before I amended it, but I inadvertently took it slightly out of context when I rearranged it. I will go back to alter the phrase. It was the first day still, but I should have clarified the meaning, now that this phrase is at the beginning of the chapter instead of at the end, that they have planned to alternate who sits next to whom in all of their classes, and in their two classes before this point, they have already done so, so more, 'as per their intention…'.

Nanchih- I did forget about Neville's wand (honesty is the best policy), but I have incorporated this into the story now. Thank you for reminding me

Outlaw_wizard- He's getting to it… this chapter actually He was really overwhelmed in Diagon Alley. He's had a little time to adjust to the wizarding world, and now the subject is going to be brought up again. He's going to want to know!

Thank also for the reviews Loretta537, Slytherin66, Bookivore, Zana20, HNBDFP, sachaelle, mwinter, Jules, Frog1, DukeBrymin, horus346, dusk (anon) and memoryking.

Please review. What would you like to happen? I have a plan now so might not be able to squeeze your ideas in, but feedback is greatly appreciated.


	7. Ch 7 Hallowe'en

**Harry Potter- The Boy Who Truly Lived**

Disclaimer: It all belongs to her! The great J.K. Rowling. I'm just playing with her world. Don't take away my toys.

Last time:

_At that, Dumbledore grabbed a pot from his desk, removing the lid and dipping a hand in to grab a small pinch of strange powder. He threw it into the fire, before shoving his head through into the flames. Harry heard little from whomever Dumbledore was talking to, but he heard Dumbledore's words. _

_By the time Harry left Professor Dumbledore's office, two rooms had been booked at the Leaky Cauldron for the Saturday and Sunday nights following Hallowe'en. Feeling pleased with himself Harry went to be feeling happy with himself, and he fell into bed as was asleep instantly. He slept soundly in dreamless sleep._

**Chapter Seven- Hallowe'en**

"No, the bishop can only move diagonally"

"Oh, so it's the King that can only go forwards and to the sides?"

"No. There isn't a piece that does that. Pay attention Harry" Ron taunted gently.

Harry and Ron had become quite good friends through working together in classes. Harry found Ron to be a very good friend, as he was not only good fun, a great confidant, intelligent (when he put his mind to it); he was also fiercely loyal and stood up for Harry at every turn, no matter what was going on in his own life, but he was a little sensitive.

If he had to choose out of all of the boys in his dorm, although it would be difficult to say, he would say that Ron was his best friend with Neville as a close second.

With Harry's encouragement, Neville had started to show signs of being a brilliant student. He was extremely clumsy and forgetful, but by focussing more and making lists, he was becoming better all round.

Within lessons the boys were all working hard, and trying to get into as little trouble as possible within lessons, although outside of lessons they all pranked each other mercilessly. When it came to the first flying lesson and Neville got more panicked as the days went on, both Harry and Seamus gave encouraging comments as often as possible. Ron went one better, and managed to procure one of his brother's brooms the weekend before the first flying lesson.

Harry, Dean and Seamus stood near Neville just under the canopy of trees at the edge of the forest. Neville was looking at Ron with trepidation. Ron stood over four inches taller than Neville, but Neville cowered like Ron was 20 feet tall.

"Neville, calm down" Ron advised, placing his hand gently on the boys shoulder. "Here" he placed the broom at Neville's feet. "Just say 'up' nice and clearly with your hand over the broom.

Neville shook from head to toe. "U…up" he stuttered in a weak voice. The broom did not move.

"Try again mate"

"Up?" Neville chirped clearly, but with the upward inflection of a question.

The boys snickered lightly at Neville. Dean jeered "it doesn't want to mate".

Harry smacked Dean lightly on the arm. "Pack it in"

"You can do it Nev" Ron encouraged

"Ok" He made a 'phoo' noise "I can do it." He paused for a moment to take a deep breath and to adjust his posture. "Up!" The broom handle immediately hopped up into his hand. Neville grinned brightly to Ron.

"Told ya you could do it mate" Ron grinned back, changing into a wry smile before he spoke again "Now it's time to sit on the broom".

Ron guided Neville into how he should hold the broom and told him to raise the end of the broom just a little, so that it wasn't parallel anymore. Neville did so but just a little too enthusiastically shooting into the air. However, as soon as he hit his head on a branch of the oak tree he was under, by instinct he pushed the broom handle down again. He landed back on the floor swiftly, but safely. Ron reached for the broom to straighten it out as it came within arm's reach, and Neville managed to land on his feet with the broom still under him without crashing to the floor.

"That's all we have time for- I have to get this back to the broom shed before George notices it's gone."

Harry was disappointed. He had hoped to get a turn on the broom, but he knew that there would be a Quidditch team practice that day and that Ron had expressly said that the broom would have to be back before 10am.

On the day of the Flying lesson, Neville woke nearly as nervous as he had been before Saturday. He was so nervous that he slopped his porridge down his robes. Harry discreetly cast scourgify on the robes, but a greyish hue was left and wouldn't come off. Neville received a parcel in the post, showing the boys that his grandmother had sent him a remembrall. He wrapped it back up and ran off to the dormitory to change robes for ones without a porridge stain, forgetting to put the remembrall in his robe pocket before he came back to join the others.

They had their normal morning classes with little disruption. Dean managed to charm a Ravenclaw student's bookbag instead of the wastepaper bin he had been aiming for. It had taken Professor Flitwick 15 minutes to catch the bookbag that ran around the classroom at a very fast speed. After lunch they went into the courtyard for their first flying lesson.

Madam Hooch barked their instructions at them of how to make the broom rise.

All five boys stood next to each other in a line. Ron was next to Neville on his left side, and gave a large smile to him and a whispered 'you can do it'. When the whistle was blown for them to commence their shouting of 'up', all five boys clearly and confidently called "Up", having seen or done it before. The brooms jumped into their hands swiftly, but they were in the minority. Several other students, including Draco Malfoy had brooms in their hands but most of the class did not. Madam Hooch looked quizzically at the boys, but did not comment.

They all waited patiently while Madam Hooch gave further advice to the people who were broomless. After a few more minutes, everyone had a broom in their hand. Goyle clearly could not say 'up' in a clear, level tone. It kept coming out as a threat. Harry saw Goyle pick his broom off of the floor when Madam Hooch's back was turned, causing Harry to roll his eyes.

All of the class had brooms in their hands. Two of the Gryffindor girls were standing in front of Harry- Hermione, and a girl called Lavender. Lavender kept whispering to Hermione, who was doing her best to ignore her.

Harry tried to ignore the whispering, but it was grating on him. Surely Lavender couldn't hear what Madam Hooch was instructing the class to do.

"Now, get ready" Harry readjusted his grip at Madam Hooch's command "After my whistle I want you to raise yourself off of the ground just a little, and then bring it back to ground, very gently. Ready? Three, two, w…. no!" Neville had tilted his broom handle up too early, and in his eagerness had tilted it way too steeply. Harry had seen this in his peripheral view at Neville's right side, and had grabbed Neville's robes. Ron's reaction was a little slower, but he managed to grab the left side of the robes, just by Neville's feet. All would have been well, if the broom had been held tightly, but the broom, without a rider rose vertically into the air. Neville, safely back on the ground watched the brooms progress. Without a rider, a broom would guide itself for a few seconds because of the charms on it. When the broom was on its own, with no more rider magic to push it onwards, it began to fall to the floor. The broom flipped over, as the bristled end caught in the air and provided a little resistance to gravity. Essentially, a large stick was now dropping downward, towards Neville's face. Harry nudged Neville out of the way and grabbed the broom before it hit the ground.

"Thank you Potter, Weasley. Mr Longbottom, be more careful. I said 'gently' tilt the broom handle. Remember that everyone! Let me show you all again." Madam Hooch demonstrated the distance that they should tilt the broom handle again. This time everyone was able to just tilt the brooms a little and then to return it to horizontal, and they all rose from the ground and stabilised their brooms at the height they reached. Some people rose only a foot or two. Most rose five or six feet into the air. Others, like Goyle had risen sixteen feet into the air.

"Good. That's a relief. Now, everyone tilt the handle down very slightly and gently, then return it to horizontal just before your feet touch the ground. Go."

Everyone returned to the ground. Goyle, having gone so high overestimated how far he needed to tip the broom handle. He tipped too far, with the broom handle pointing to the ground at an angle, having propelled forward; he hit his toes on the concrete and yowled in pain.

"It's just a little scuff! Get back in line, and listen up. You HAVE to make gentle movements. This is a flying lesson, not a Quidditch lesson. None of you are expected to whizz around. You just need to know how to fly a broom so you can use one if you need to. You're going to take a little flight now. We're going in groups. Rise into the air a little way then fly in a straight line to the flags. Go around a flag VERY GENTLY, and then come back here and land. Ok. First group… the first two on the far left of both rows… Mr Thomas, Mr Weasley, Miss Hartshorn, Miss Dunbar. You're first. Now, everyone else come this way. You four, spread out more. Give everyone a little more room. Ready? Three, Two, one" and she blew the whistle again.

The first group of students all rose into the air gently, Ron much more confidently than the others. He flew quickly to a flag, went swiftly around the post and came back and was standing next to Neville again before the others had even flown to the flags. Fay Dunbar shrieked as she flew around the left flag post at too high a speed. She slowed herself and stopped turning early, so she had to fly in a straight line to the other post, which she grasped desperately, using her hand contact on the post to guide her broom around it. The others managed to get around one post by slowing down to almost stopped, and very slowly edging around the posts.

When the remaining students had landed back on the courtyard, Madam Hooch called out again, "Mr Longbottom, Mr Potter, Miss Granger, Miss Brown- your turn." She blew her whistle hard again. Harry paused just a moment, to make sure that Neville was ok now. Neville seemed to have relaxed, because he was already in the air, and slowly making his way across to the flags. Harry positioned himself correctly, and tilted the broom handle up, so that he could get going. As he sped up into the air, he realised how fantastic flying was. He leaned forward on the broom to really get going and see what it could do. He did so, speeding down the fly zone, whipping around the flagpole in the blink of an eye, and speeding back to the start point again.

Hermione and Lavender were just reaching the flag poles as Harry neared the start point, but they went for the same post at the same time, at the same height. Lavender made a small "Ugh" sound as she noticed that she was going to crash.

Harry whipped around, and sped towards them without even thinking. He flew directly at Hermione's back as she was slightly closer to him, and grabbed her by the wrist as he yanked her and the broom upwards. Hermione was tugged onto Harry's broom and Lavender was smacked in the shoulder by the retreating broom that's trajectory had been altered in Harry's grab.

Lavender grabbed the retreating broom though after it had slowed due to smacking her shoulder, and brought it with her back to the courtyard. Harry came back with Hermione on the back of his broom, who screamed as Harry slowly, for him, approached and landed gracefully back onto the concrete.

When Harry arrived back in front of his classmates, he realised that Madam Hooch had jumped onto her broom, and started towards the impending crash. All of his Gryffindor classmates, and a couple of the Slytherin group were applauding him. He felt a little proud of helping the girls avoid collision, but also embarrassed at being the centre of attention.

"Really, it was nothing…"

"Well done Mr Potter. You'd make a fantastic Quidditch player! But, for now- back to the lesson. Mr. Finnegan, Mr Zabini, Miss Patil, Miss Greengrass- your turn."

The lesson carried on with no significant further upheaval. Parvati and Seamus were accustomed to brooms, having both been on the back of one before. Draco Malfoy was informed that his grip was wrong but he flew well and fast, but with him as an exception, the Slytherin's all took the route at a jogging pace.

Hallowe'en arrived quickly. The part that was most on students minds, was the feast. Rumours had spread about what entertainment Dumbledore had booked.

"I've heard that Dumbledore booked the Crooning Crones"

"No, it's the Shrieking Skeletons"

"Well I heard it's the Old Miser's"

The last lesson before lunch was charms, which the boys all entered and sat in their now customary places. Harry sat beside Dean in this class, Seamus with Neville, and Ron was the one who had no one from their group to sit next to within this class. As a result, he sat next to the odd one out from the girls in Gryffindor, Hermione Granger, the frizzy whirlwind.

"Ok class, today we will learn how to make objects levitate, or, if you prefer, to fly!"

The class got underway, with much shouting of the magical words "Wingardium Leviosa". Ron tried his hardest, but he didn't quite seem to get it right.

"I don't think you're saying it right" Hermione chirped quietly after Ron had tried five times to get the feather to float, "I think its win-GAR-dee-um Lev-ee-oh-sah… make the 'gar' a little longer".

Ron turned to her swiftly, planning to snap at her. She had an expression of complete genuineness on her face, and Ron could tell that she was just trying to help. He took a deep breath.

"Ok… here we go… Wingardium leviosa!" His wand movement had been perfect but his pronunciation was off, so when he pronounced it properly, the feather rose slowly a few feet off of the table. Ron grinned at Hermione who grinned back.

"See here, Mr Weasley's done it!"

Hermione gave it a go and did it on her first try, but it didn't dissipate Ron's pride of being the first to perfect a spell in charms. It also taught him a lesson, to listen carefully when teachers instructed how to say incantations.

When the evening came, the student body were all seated, awaiting the Hallowe'en feast and eagerly chatting amongst themselves.

"Welcome everyone" Professor Dumbledore started, carefully pacing his words to draw everyone's attention, and to signify the start of a speech "to the Hallowe'en feast. I know you've all been eagerly awaiting these words: dig in!"

Everyone laughed as his words heralded the food appearing on giant serving dishes all across the house tables. Harry and his friends all grabbed a little of almost everything on the table. Ron had invited Hermione to join the boys, as she had been kind to him and he noticed that she didn't really have any friends. The other four girls in the first year had divided into friendship pairs and left Hermione out the majority of the time. Ron was happily chatting to Hermione about his favourite story book as a child, when a quick scuffle up the length of the aisle up the Great Hall got the attention of most people in the school.

"Troll…. In the dungeons! TROLL in the dungeons! Thought you ought to know" Professor Quirrell fell in a dead faint near the foot of the head table.

Shouting and panicking started before Quirrell had even hit the floor.

"Quiet!" Professor Dumbledore yelled. "Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, to your dormitories. Slytherin students to the Astronomy tower, Hufflepuff, to the North Tower. Head boy, Head girl and Prefects, lead the way. Teachers, come with me". The teachers were the first to leave the Great Hall, who left running.

The Prefects, under the guidance of the head boy and girl tried to cajole the students to the towers, but there was confusion amongst everyone, especially as the older students were all already leaving, blocking all of the exits to adjoining corridors.

.

"Okay" the head boy called. Gryffindor prefects, Ravenclaw prefects… get your students to your own tower once we're all gone, Hufflepuff prefects, follow the Head girl Hufflepuff students, follow them. Slytherin prefects and students, we're going this way." The head boy started walking purposefully, so the Slytherin students all started to follow him. The head girl led the way to a different door, taking the Hufflepuffs away. Most of the older students had already left. Less than 15 students from Gryffindor, and Ravenclaw remained still near their house tables, all third year or below, as they were blocked from exiting the Great Hall by the throngs of people leaving via the different exits.

"Well, let's get going too" Dean said, as soon as the main exit from the Great Hall was clear enough to leave from. They all started to walk towards the door, but a scream reached their ears. The last few people who had walked out of the doors leading to the entrance hall ran back in, pale and scared.

Those students all ran to the very last door which was free in the Great Hall, which no one had attempted to go through- the one to the trophy room which had no exit.

The reason became apparent very quickly. The increasing volume and shake of heavy footfall could be heard and felt, moving steadily closer. Within seconds, a dull thud knocked the doors inwards, and they swung open presenting a huge, stinking mountain troll.

The Ravenclaws remaining in the Great Hall shrieked and hid under the house tables. Harry, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Ron and Hermione all stood with their wands drawn, facing the troll.

"Oh Merlin, the stink!" Dean yelled covering his nose.

"Keep your wand ready!" Harry yelled back to him. Dean shook his head from side to side, and backed up, hand over his nose under the nearest house table with some Ravenclaws.

"There's enough of us… surround it. Get it to drop its club or it'll kill us all! Harry called to the assembled Gryffindors.

They all tried all of the spells they could think of that they had mastered, flinging spells, and objects at the troll. Eventually, Ron yelled "Wingardium Leviosa!" swishing and flicking with careful determination. The spell caught the club, raising it into the air and turning it over to hit it on its head. Once the troll was dizzy, Ron flung himself at the troll, landing on the trolls back as it crashed to the floor face first. He scrambled up its head, to hold it to the ground. Neville and Seamus ran to hold down the two arms. Harry and Hermione went to the feet of the troll, but did not attempt to hold it down. They each transfigured fallen plates into long, strong ropes and tied the feet together. They each then went to a hand, and tied them behind its own back, and the ropes to theose tying the feet together.

After they had caused the troll to fall, all of the Ravenclaws and Dean came out from under the house tables, and all of the students who hid in the trophy room came out to see what had happened. When it was tied up securely, Dean gave a low appreciative whistle and started applauding the other Gryffindors. The other students followed suit.

The applause must have attracted the attention of the teachers, who had failed to find the troll in the Dungeons, because their feet could be heard sprinting across the entrance hall. Dumbledore shoved the doors open with both hands as he ran in, stopping as soon as he came through the doors to find five Gryffindor students standing next to a hog-tied mountain troll, with a large contingent of students clapping at them.

After a detailed explanation, filled in by a large number of students, Professor Dumbledore announced that he was very proud of the Gryffindors and awarded them each15 house points for bravery and protecting the student body at large; which made all five of the Gryffindors proud. It had boosted the Gryffindor house points by 75 points in one go.

Please review. What would you like to happen? I have a plan now so might not be able to squeeze your ideas in, but feedback is greatly appreciated.

Oh, in case you didn't realise, I don't know how to play chess. I found a list of how the pieces move online, so if any of that bit is wrong, it's not my fault. In fact- if you find anything wrong, don't blame me only joking. Helpful criticism is welcome as always.


End file.
